carnal

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English carnal, also carnel and charnel,^[2] borrowed from Late Latin carnālis (“of the flesh, fleshly”),^[3][4][5][6] a word of Tertullian and other Christian writers,^[3] which Merriam-Webster Unabridged takes as a translation of Ancient Greek σαρκικός (sarkikós).^[7] Etymonline and Barnhart add a French route, through Old French carnal,^[8][9] the American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Unabridged name Old North French carnel,^[10][7] and the MED names Old French charnel;^[2] the OED notes that the French form of the Latin word is charnel,^[3] which in Anglo-Norman is recorded from 1121–35.^[11] The Latin adjective is formed on the stem of carō (“flesh, meat”),^{[3][8][12][4]} probably first "a piece of flesh",^[8][6] and is related to Umbrian karu (“part, piece”) and Oscan carneis (“of a part”).^[6][13] Etymonline, Klein and the American Heritage Dictionary trace it to Proto-Indo-European *sker- (“to cut”),^[8][6][10] also behind Ancient Greek κείρω (keírō, “to cut”)^[7][13] and Old English sceran (“to cut, shear”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the body as the seat of the appetites; fleshly, sensual: before 1400, in the Coventry Mysteries.^[3][14] Etymonline dates the word to about 1400, with the sense "physical, human, mortal",^[8] Barnhart to probably about 1400,^[15][9] and Dictionary.com to 1350–1400.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English word already covered the body, the world, sex and kinship.^[2] Medieval Latin used carnalis as an attribute of relationship, as in frater carnalis, a brother by blood, and English took this up from 1490 to 1598.^[3][8] The theological sense of "not spiritual" appears equally early,^[3] recorded from 1483, in Caxton, as "material, temporal, secular",^[3] and about 1510, in Thomas More, as "unregenerate, worldly".^[3] The narrower sexual sense is recorded from before 1500,^[3] and carnal knowledge, sexual intercourse, from the early 15th century, in legal use by the 1680s.^[8][2] The OED reads a 1597 use in Shakespeare's Richard III as "bloody, murderous",^[3][4] whereas Johnson (1755) quoted "this carnal cur" from the same play under his second sense, "lustful; lecherous; libidinous", after "fleshly; not spiritual".^[16] The plain sense "of the body" lasts until 1847 in the OED, which now marks "not spiritual" as archaic,^[3] and Collins defines the word only by the body's appetites and passions.^[17]

Timeline

• before 1400 – fleshly, sensual.^[3]
• early 15th century – carnal knowledge, sexual intercourse.^[8]
• 1483 – not spiritual; material, temporal, secular.^[3]
• 1488 – of the flesh or body, corporeal (obsolete by 1847).^[3]
• 1490 – related by blood (obsolete by 1598).^[3]
• before 1500 – sexual.^[3]
• c. 1510 – unregenerate, worldly.^[3]
• 1597 – bloody, murderous, in Shakespeare.^[3][4]
• 1607 – plural noun, carnals, earthly possessions (obsolete by 1625).^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Relating to the body's appetites and passions; sensual, fleshly: He renounced the carnal indulgences of his youth.^[17][7][3]
2. Sexual, often crudely so.^[7][3] Carnal knowledge, chiefly in law, is sexual intercourse.^[4][8]
3. Of the flesh or body; corporeal, a sense the OED now marks as obsolete.^[7][4][3]
4. (archaic) Not spiritual; temporal, secular or worldly.^[3][7][4]
5. (obsolete, 1490–1598) Related by blood.^[3][7][4]
6. (obsolete, 1597) Bloodthirsty, murderous.^[3][7][4]

Word family

• carnality
• carnally
• hypercarnal
• carnal knowledge

Related words

• incarnate
• incarnation
• reincarnate
• reincarnation
• carnage
• carnation
• carnivorous
• charnel
• carnival
• carrion
• shear
• cortex

Usage notes

Dictionary.com separates the near-synonyms: carnal can oppose body to spirit but often points to sexual urges, sensual suggests eroticism or the pleasures of the senses, fleshly covers any bodily need, hunger and thirst included, and animal can also praise physical grace.^[12] The OED also records rare, unrelated uses of this spelling: an abusive alteration of cardinal (c. 1540–1598), a noun of 1823 that may mean a crow, presumably for French corneille, and a verb from the adjective (1643, before 1657).^[3] In American Hispanic slang carnal is a friend from one's own neighbourhood or group, from Spanish carnal, recorded from 1971.^[18]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com